If you were ever wondering why the iPhone lacked a much-anticipated sapphire coating, the answer comes down to reflectance.
Per Raymond Soneira, DisplayMate has published tests results concerning sapphire’s reflectance on assorted devices, the numbers standing for themselves.
According to the tests, the new iPad Air returned a result of 2.5 percent screen reflectance, the lowest that’s been measured by the citing, making it extremely unlikely that Apple will ever use Sapphire, with its 8.0 percent screen reflectance, on future iPhones.
The much lower 2.5 percent reflectance improves screen readability, image contrast, and color saturation in ambient light by almost 2:1 over the best existing mobile displays, a major innovation and enhancement for mobile displays that are almost always used in significant ambient light. And sapphire reflects 3 times the amount of ambient light.
If you apply an anti-Reflection coating to sapphire, which has a very high 8 percent reflectance all by itself, you lose its very high scratch resistance because the softer coating is now on top, which causes it to lose its original functionality.
If you thought Apple was just being cheap in not installing a mighty scratch-resistant sapphire coating on your new iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus, this may be the most valid answer.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.